Fredagsseminar: Thomas Smitherman

The Case for Prehistoric Language Contact Between Kartvelian and Indo-European

There are a number of striking formal and typological similarities
between the Kartvelian languages (located in and around the present-day
Republic of Georgia) and the older Indo-European languages. This paper
makes the case that the most likely explanation of these phenomena are
the existence of long-term, prehistoric contact between the Early
Kartvelians and either the Proto-Indo-Europeans or an early branch
thereof.
Strong correspondences in ablaut types (Gamqrelidze & Machavariani
1962) and syllable structure (Gamqrelidze & Ivanov 1983) between
reconstructed PIE and Proto-Kartvelian are well-documented, as are a
number of accepted “Indo-Europeanisms” in the reconstructed Kartvelian
lexicon (Klimov 1994). We shall examine more instances of likely
lexical borrowing into Kartvelian from an early stage of Indo-European
(Smitherman 2009) before shifting focus to the development of the
verbal systems and argument marking in the two families. Both the IE
and Kartvelian verbal systems display an evolution from a more
diathetically centred split in conjugations to one more aspectually
centred (Smitherman 2006).
Given the similarities in the development of the verb, ablaut,
syllable structure, and apparent lexical borrowings, the most likely
explanation is an ancient period of long-term language contact.
Concluding arguments shall show why alternative explanations (a common
genetic inheritance, coincidence, and language universals) are
improbable explanations.

REFERENCES

-Gamqrelidze, Tamazi & Ivanov, V.V. 1983. Indoevropeisky jazyk i
indoevropeitsy. Tbilisi State University.
-Gamqrelidze, Tamazi & Machavariani, Gizhi. 1962. Sonant’ta da
sist’ema da ablaut’i kartveur enebshi. Tbilisi: Mecniereba.
-Klimov, G.A. 1994. Drevneishie indoevropeizmy kartvel’skikh jazykov.
Moscow: Nauka.
-Smitherman, Thomas. 2006. Razvitie kategorii aspekta i diatezy v
indoevropeiskikh i kartvel’skikh jazykakh. (Master’s Thesis) Moscow
State University.
-Smitherman, Thomas. 2009. “On Ancient Kartvelian-Indo-European
Lexical Contacts and Their Consequences for Proto-Indo-European”.
(Submitted to the Proceedings of the Conference on Indo-European
Phonology, April 2009, University of Copenhagen).